Court sides with province over MMF on health funding

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This article was published 21/08/2018 (2810 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba Metis Federation has been denied a judicial review of the province’s 2016 decision to not renew funding to the Health & Wellness Department.

Along with a judicial review, the MMF sought, among other things, an order quashing the decision to not approve funding proposals related to the program and a declaration that the provincial government “breached various principles, duties and obligations.”

In its July 30 ruling, the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench determined that although the province adopted The Path to Reconciliation Act and the Manitoba Métis Policy, “the extent to which they create legally binding and applicable obligations on government fiscal policy choices remains very unclear and doubtful.”

By extension, the ruling determined that while “there may indeed exist genuine and legitimate disappointment and frustration with respect to the fiscal policy choice made by (the provincial government),” a judicial review of the decision would prove irrelevant, and therefore it has been dismissed.

The Health & Wellness Department received provincial funding from Oct. 1, 2011 to March 31, 2016 through a series of annual agreements, the last of which expired under the previous Manitoba NDP government a few weeks prior to the April 19, 2016 election, in which the Manitoba Progressive Conservatives won a majority.

Although the MMF continued running the Health & Wellness Department’s programming after its latest funding agreement ended, and according to court documents “made several inquiries regarding the status of these funded proposals,” it wasn’t until Nov. 29, 2016 that then-health minister Kelvin Goertzen confirmed that it would not be renewed.

Manitoba Metis Federation southwest chapter president Leah LaPlante said that delivering funding under pilot programs such as this, with one-year renewals, prevents them from gaining too great a traction, and are far too common in Indigenous programming.

“You just get a program going where it’s delivering everything you thought it could for your people, and the funding gets cut — no explanation, not a year’s notice … just bang, and I think it’s wrong,” she said.

“I think it does more harm than good,” she added. In this case, “at the end of the day, they are going to be paying those dollars, it’s just going to be at the other end of it, not in preventing things but in treating things after. It just doesn’t make sense to us.”

The Health & Wellness Department employed five MMF health staffers who advised and worked alongside Manitoba Health and regional health authorities on how to most effectively target health services to Métis communities.

Among these staff members was Kris Desjarlais, who served as health and wellness manager for the southwest region.

Based out of Brandon, Desjarlais — who also serves as a city councillor in Brandon’s Rosser ward — said the program took a holistic approach to improving health outcomes for Métis people, and included a close collaboration with the health regions.

“There was some steam and some traction happening there, and it’s just unfortunate when you get a change in government where they don’t always see that value for money,” he said. “It was a fantastic program, and to get its rug pulled out from under it was disappointing because there was really some traction moving and they were moving in a positive direction.”

Although Desjarlais maintains that the program was ended prematurely, he said that it has resulted in some lasting changes in Westman, including MMF adopting Housing First initiatives, which strive to deal with poverty by putting people in housing first, and then tackling whatever issues led to their homelessness to begin with.

LaPlante shared a similar sentiment, noting that several gaps in service were cited during the program’s lifespan, and that various changes, both small and large, have been made to help fill them.

“A lot of it was just making our people start to feel comfortable going to an emergency room or things like that — they just didn’t feel that there was anything to indicate that that was their health-care facility as well,” she said. “Sometimes it was as easy as changing a few words on an intake paper.

“It has made a difference in that (Métis people) feel like they were heard … In some cases, it’s made things work better in emergency rooms and stuff like that.”

Further to this, she said that the MMF is now looking to improve upon additional areas that the health-care system was found to have come up short in helping Métis people, through efforts such as an eyeglasses program for seniors, a pharmacy in Winnipeg and future proposed efforts, such as assisting in the purchase of hearing aids.

Although having funding cut in 2016 “really put roadblocks in front of us for a while,” she said that they’ve managed to make their way around these roadblocks and continue moving forward.

Even so, she said more could be done.

“You can only help for the dollars that you have to be able to help, and we’re helping the ones who need it the most at this point and pushing hard, federally, for the health department there to start including the Métis in some programming that they provide to the First Nations and Inuit in Canada,” she said.

“The word reconciliation is getting thrown around a lot, and a lot of it, when people say it, they haven’t got a clue of what it means; reconciliation, right? Reconciliation takes a lot of work, on both sides.”

While there’s still much to do, LaPlante added that an increasing portion of the population appears to be on the same page as it relates to getting behind reconciliation.

“All in all, if I had to look at the big picture, the country is shifting, and a lot of Canadians are genuinely behind us on reconciliation — I have to say that, without a doubt.”

The Manitoba Metis Federation is currently seeking another judicial review — this one related to the March 21 decision made by the provincial government to block a $67-million payment to the MMF for Manitoba Hydro to build infrastructure over traditional Métis lands.

A government spokesperson said the government would not comment on either judicial review, explaining, “It would be inappropriate for the minister to comment on the decision, as the case is still before the courts.”

An inquiry put into the Manitoba Metis Federation’s head office was not returned by press time on Monday.

» tclarke@brandonsun.com, with files from the Winnipeg Free Press

» Twitter: @TylerClarkeMB